So I have this new project that’s really just “The Growing Life 2.0.”  It’s called Finance Your Freedom, and I’ve talked about it at length here.  I just finished hiring an assistant to help with the site (god, that sounds so “hardcore” even thought it isn’t), and I’ve partnered with a fancy top secret crazy person to help make the site not suck.

(So if you’re interested in my new non-sucking project, go nab an RSS subscription to it before they’re all gone). Or subscribe to the Finance Your Freedom newsletter here:

Anyway, I’ve received over a hundred emails of encouragement (thank you!), but a few people have been suspicious.  I appreciate those emails too.  Here’s my response.

But don’t get too worked up about FYF.  I’m not worked up.  I’m just this guy whose stumbled upon a bunch of ideas and tactics and stuff that’s helped me and some friends to quit our day jobs.  (This stuff might work for you too).

(By the way, as a result of my freedom I’ve been able to move to California for a bit to spend time with my grandfather who’s experiencing the early stages of Alzheimer’s.  Which has been really nice.  I love lifestyle design).

One last thing: sometime really soon (within the next 5 days) your Growing Life subscription will convert to a Finance Your Freedom subscription.

(What comes next for The Growing Life’s domain name isn’t certain right now . . . maybe I’ll delete all my articles and replace them with gross looking ads for casinos and Viagra and then hire a bunch of people to click on them; just kidding).

For articles that suck less than the leading competitor, subscribe to Finance Your Freedom.

 
photo by new wave rh
[Note: The Growing Life will become Finance Your Freedom.  Please go there for the full version of the article, or to leave a comment (I'd love to hear your thoughts on this piece)].

I should start out by telling you that . . .

I’m Trying to Practice My Ranting Skillz

I suck at ranting. I enjoy reading rants, but I’ve never been very good at writing them. But apparently the rant genre is a sub-genre of the blog genre, and I need to master this shit if I ever want to displace Dooce on technorati.

Cool… I’ll Start With My Rant Right Now

Almost any resource can be a currency governed my economic forces—and the laws of supply and demand. (I probably read that in a fancy book somewhere. Please punch me in the face if I ever write another high falutin’ sentence like that again).

Anyway, money is a currency or whatever. Yeah, we know that.

But so is ego: it is traded, bartered for, bought, sold, etc. I see people participating in the ego economy all the time: new business owners waste thousands of dollars on putting big pictures of themselves on billboards. Social media people and others in the web 2.0 space sacrifice entire days of vacation and family time so they can be mini-internet famous for 1,000 people and make an extra $100/month. And people get into debt buying shit they don’t need trying to impress others or get laid.

So before the internet, money was (often) the primary means by which people participated in the ego economy; the money economy fed into the ego economy. Maybe it’s still this way.

But social media, the internet, and web 2.0 have given people a whole new venue for being vein and wasting their resources in exchange for ego gratification. Now you can broadcast a vlog to 500 people, become a power user on StumbleUpon, or Reddit, or Digg, and start a blog and try to get 1000s of subscribers. You can start and lead your own forum or newsgroup. You can be the leader of your own fiefdom of 400.

[Click here to read the rest of this article]

This isn’t a real blog post, but if I were you I’d want me to tell you about the following two things:

Thing #1: Noami and Havi’s Self Promotion for Wimps

I’m kicking myself for not telling you about this sooner.

So my awesome-as-hell friend Naomi and her partner in crime Havi are offering this six-week class called “Self-Promotion For Wimps.”

Note: THIS IS NOT A NONSESE INTERNET-MAKETING BULLSHIT HYPE CLASS. This is a thoughtful program designed to help you start making changes in your life.

Anyway, if you’ve though a lot about starting a business but can’t find the guts to do it then I think you should check it out pronto. Especially given that especially given that the first session was YESTERDAY (Wednesday, September 10^th).

But don’t worry at all. They’re recording all the sessions (so you can still get in on the first) and I just checked with Naomi and you can still get in on all of the last 5 sessions and miss nothing (because the first class was recorded).

Anyway, Naomi sent me this coupon code and apparently you’ll get like $30 off if you type CLAY into a box during the order process. I’m feeling all flattered and stuff because this is the first time someone’s named a coupon code after me.

Thing #2: The Best SEO Course on the Planet is Now Free

There’s this company called StomperNET that makes what is – in my opinion – the most thorough, effective, well-researched, and amazing SEO course available on the internet today. And I’ve tried a few.

Anyway, they’re giving away the latest version of their $500 DVD SEO course for free. Because they’re crazy like that (actually, they have good reasons that won’t harm you).

Anyway, if you’ve ever thought about doing anything on the internet that might, perhaps, maybe promote your business or make you money someday, then I’d check out this course. Because search engine optimization (SEO) is the absolute foundation of internet marketing.

(By the way, Andy and Brad at StomperNET are offering a lot more than the course for free, but if I gave you the whole scoop it would sound so ridiculous that I’d sound completely full of shit and lose credibility).

I’ve been working my ass off getting Finance Your Freedom ready, and it launches in 22 days.

But before FYF launches, I want to give you a flavor of what’s to come.  So tonight I’m not-so-subtly “leaking” (ha!) part one of a series of “Interviews With Work from Home & Lifestyle Design Renegades.” Go check it out here.

A little about Chris . . .

• It takes Chris between 1/2 hour and 2 hours each day to run his immensely successful Orange County personal training company.
• Chris is a married father of two girls, an Orange County personal trainer, and a fitness marketing blogger.
• In a past life, Chris was a marijuana trafficker and has (at various times) been both homeless & incarcerated.
• Chris is an amazing person and one of the best lifestyle designers I know.

In the interview we talk about…

• How Chris turned an 70+ hour work week into a 7-hour work week;
• How Chris went from making NOTHING as a personal trainer, to making more than 99% of personal trainers; 
• The most important first step towards leaving your day job;
• How Chris liberated himself from a traditional work environment and created the life of his dreams;
• Renegade time management; and
• Internet marketing and empowerment.

But enough talking already. . .

Just go here and listen to Chris droppin’ knowledge.

For more marketing hype surrounding Finance Your Freedom, subscribe to The Growing Life.

Announcement #1: The Finance Your Freedom blog is now in pre-launch mode.  See here for a sneak peak (see here for more information about Finance Your Freedom).

Announcement #2: Next week I’ll be interviewing my friend Chris, who does what he loves and makes mucho dinero. And get this: it only takes him 2 hours per day to run his fitness business. I wouldn’t believe it either if I didn’t actually KNOW this guy. Check back soon for that interview.]

Announcement #3: This week in the VERY FIRST Finance Your Freedom newsletter, I’ll be answering a questions by Frans D. who asks “If you had to start over tomorrow from scratch (day job) to funding your freedom; how would you do it, what would be the most important thing to do and what do you suggest I do to get a jump start?”  Sign up here to see my response:

Most people can work from home and make a living if they’re determined and don’t mind working their asses off. That part’s doable. Working at home and actually loving it, however, is a different story: it can be hard as hell.

It’s Hard as Hell Because of . . .

The blue circle represents things you really like to do. Something doesn’t have to be ostensibly important, significant, worthwhile, or respectable to fall in this circle. If you really like to dance, go camping, cook, or play with your children, then those things go inside this circle (something tells me you know what’s in your blue circle, but read this if you don’t).

The green circle represents the realm of things you can do IN THE VERY NEAR FUTURE to earn money, support your family, and live comfortably. Your green circle isn’t just determined by you: it’s also determined by market forces, supply and demand, the global and local economy, etc.

For many people, there’s very little overlap between the things we really enjoy doing, and the things we can to do make a healthy living in the very near future. That’s part of the reason why so many people hate their jobs: they just can’t get paid for doing things they like to do.

By the way, I know plenty of people who work from home AND hate their jobs: working from home or owning your own business doesn’t necessarily fix your problems (it often makes them worse).

The Three-Percent Problem

The Three-Percent Problem is the reality that — for a hell of a lot of people — there’s only a 3% overlap (i.e. a VERY SMALL overlap) between the things we love to do and the things that pay the bills (as illustrated by the circles above). 3% is arbitrary. The point is that the overlap is small.

In fact, the overlap is so small that most people don’t even see that such an overlap exists at all.

At any rate, the Three-Percent Problem lies at the root of . . .

Read the rest of this entry »

You’re about to read a long-ass post. But before you grab a cup of coco and put on your reading glasses . . .

Here’s What I Want You to Do

If you support the spirit of this blog and have gained anything from The Growing Life, then I’d really appreciate your completing this “Finance Your Freedom” questionnaire. If you wax the survey then the gods of good luck will shower benevolence upon you for all eternity. I promise.

Also, if you have any questions about funding your freedom, please email them to me at claycollins [at] gmail [dot] com; I’ll be answering as many questions as I can on the Finance Your Freedom mailing list: you can sign up for it here:

Ok, now to the part about me almost shutting down The Growing Life. It all begins with . . .

A Series of AWESOME Conversations

About a month ago I started having daily conversations with readers of this blog. What I discovered OVER and OVER again was that most everyone reading The Growing Life “gets” all this liberation stuff I’ve been talking about. I’ve heard over and over again that I validate your alternative lifestyle aspirations. And I’m happy to have done this. Really.

So you may be thinking . . .

“So Why Shut Down The Growing Life?”

As I said earlier, I talk to a reader of this blog nearly every day. And nearly everyone I’ve spoken to has the exact same reason why they can’t quit their 9-5 job and live the life they want. Want to take a guess what that reason is?

You’re right: it’s money.

But it’s really more complex than that. You see, quitting your 9-5 job and recreating your life takes a LOT of time. Creating alternative sources of income takes time. And building a lifestyle from scratch takes time. And the list goes on.

And most people can’t afford their own time. This bears repeating . . .

If You’re Like Most People, then Large Corporations Can Afford Your Time But You Cannot

If you’re like most people, then you can’t survive without selling your time to someone else.

How fucked up is that?

So the real problem really isn’t money, it’s our inability to buy our own time. (Most people could liberate themselves if they could just buy enough of their own time).

So I Almost Shut Down The Growing Life Because . . .

Read the rest of this entry »

So yeah, I almost shut down The Growing Life forever.  And this isn’t where the story ends: the plot thickens and reaches a climax when someone offers $12,000 for this blog and I turn them down.

Long story short: instead of selling The Growing Life or shutting it down, I ended up taking a vacation.  I’m on it now.  Look for the full scoop on Tuesday  Wednesday (or just stop by for more of the same ‘ol armchair nonsense).

For more riveting blog drama, pick up a free subscription to The Growing Life.

[Note: I'll be writing a series of future posts on financing your freedom.  If you'd like a free 15-minute consultation with me on the topic, enter your email address on this page and then drop me a line at claycollins (at) gmail (dot) com]

 
photo by Leo London

About two months ago I wrote about how I’d quit my job and was going for broke. I’m happy to report that since then, things are going better than ever. I’m making more than I ever have before, I have unprecedented levels of free time and flexibility, and I’m the happiest I’ve ever been.

But I’ve talked to enough people going through similar situations to know that I’ve had some really lucky breaks, and that some of my circumstances aren’t easily repeatable. So I’ve written this post to address some of the most frequent problems people face when trying to fund their freedom and liberate themselves from traditional work environments.

Let’s get started.

One of the most damaging myths perpetuated by our society is . . .

The Myth that if You Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow

There is this insane myth in our culture that if you do what you love, the money will naturally follow. It’s one of those deceptive half truths that often leads to humiliation.

Read the rest of this entry »